


That Matchless Pearl

by little_spider



Category: Marvel (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Norse Religion & Lore, The Life of Saint Margaret of Antioch (Medieval Saint's Life), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Character(s) of Color, F/M, Gen, Original Character(s), Original Female Character(s) - Freeform, Pre-Thor (2011)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-03-19
Updated: 2016-03-23
Packaged: 2018-05-27 17:12:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,091
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6292867
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/little_spider/pseuds/little_spider
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The reincarnation of Saint Margaret of Antioch goes to Asgard and eventually ends up partying hard with the Br'Odinssons. Uh, yeah. Just bear with me while I come up with a better summary. Additional tags to be added.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Come away, o human child!

A plastic canister of instant coffee crystals and a small pile of vitamin gel capsules on the counter. It would have made for a magisterial act of passive aggression, Margaret thought, had Sydney actually been aware that it was passive aggressive. Pity.

"Eeeeeehhhhhh..."

A drawn-out groan and a thump signalled the arrival of another occupant on the park bench. Margaret took a pull on her cigarette and held it briefly, welcoming the rapid, pleasant headrush and the odor of burnt tobacco. She disliked the stink on the tips of her fingers. She disliked having to share space on the bench with another body that made such intrusive grunts. But there were always sacrifices for small pleasures.

She reconsidered the small pleasure of sitting on a public park bench early in the morning on a summers day, though, when the new arrival hawked and spat, then gave a deep sinusidal snort.

"I'm Randy." Jesus Christ, but she hated people.

"Margaret," she said sharply, and glared at him out of the corner of her eye. He was old, and filthy, and reeked of spoiled milk and stale booze. He lifted a crinkled brown paper bag to his bearded lips and drank from the bottle inside. She turned her head a bit, and noticed that his fingernails were grimy and splitting. He'd plastic bags encasing his feet. Her stomach gave a little heave, while a pang went through her chest.

"Not Maggie or Molly?" His speech was slurred.

"No."

"Well, Margaret." He faced her and started mumbling, and she thought she made out something about "old" and "war," of course "kids these days," "respect" and maybe (?) "elders." Then there was fighting in "vaannaam," but he sounded unsure of himself.

"Vietnam?"

"Yes. Vietnam!" Randy seemed to brighten. He grinned at her with blackened teeth. "So many stories. But you know why I come here? I come here to sit and watch these strangers. You see that lad? Look at his trousers! Ridiculous."

"They're called skinny jeans. Yea, he looks like rubbish. But the dog collar's worse."

"Yes!" and it sounded more like _yesh_. The old hobo was wrecked, and it wasn't even nine in the morning.

"And that one there." He gestured with his paper bag-bottle. "You see the collar of his shirt... how it's all turned up? That and his shoes tell me that--"

"Trust fund man-child?" Randy laughed open-mouthed in response. It was a horrid sound, but Margaret found herself laughing with him. Then he seemed to sober and looked her straight in the face with a gimlet eye. Margaret stubbed her cigarette out on the bench.

"You ever want to pick up and get out of here?" he asked.

"What, New York? Well, yeah, actually. Just told my mum last night that I was getting out, moving back to London. Starting over." _Not my real mum_ , she decided not to add. _Not much of a mum at all_.

"Starting over?" He raised his bushy eyebrows. He'd seemed to sober up rather quickly. Margaret got the feeling that he was mocking her.

"You know, that clichéd quarter-life crisis. Though I guess I'm past the quarter mark. Quit my job, say my goodbyes to my two friends here, get out." Sydney'd thrown a fit last night when Margaret had told her, in the way that only an upper-class white woman could throw a fit when she lost control of a prized possession. Margaret read regret, though, in the leavings on the counter this morning.

"Old friends back home?"

"Not really, didn't keep in touch very well. But it's the whole idea of--"

"Starting over."

"Yeah." He nodded, then coughed wetly into his hand. Margaret shifted uncomfortably and felt the need to clarify. "I mean if I could, I'd just go someplace entirely new. A brand new place, where I don't know anyone or anything. But honestly, you know what? I'll tell you a secret."

"I love secrets," he wheezed, and leaned in conspiratorially. Margaret resisted holding her nose. She decided she rather liked him.

"I'm just too damn lazy to do all the footwork." It was a source of shame to her, for some reason.

Randy patted her shoulder with a gnarled, ancient hand. "Well. I can take care of that for you. Just the place. Want to go with me?" He took a long pull from his bottle-bag again. "Very far away, though. You'd be leaving everything behind, young lady. Everyone and everything. No more of these Sydneys and their tyrannical stashes of vitamins."

"What, like some kind of sparkly fairy land?" His screws were loose, rattling around in his head, but he was sweet.

"Something like that. I can get you there. But you'd be in my debt, girl. You want to do that? Owe old Randy a favor? Perilous, perilous. _Heh._ " He hawked and spat again.

"I see," she said, and frowned. "Like you'll make me promise my first-born child or something, right?"

"Nah." He snorted and waved his hand. "That's just damn stupid. You know, what if that young lady'd gone and never had children, what then? Nah," and it almost sounded like _nai_. "A year and a day, I'll come to collect then. Won't ask for nothing too extreme. Get me a Coke and a pizza. Play a game of skee-ball with me. Assassinate some rich finance mogul somewhere."

Margaret decided to play along; it made him smile. But she felt a recklessness in her gut about it. "Nothing too bad? Promise?"

"Promise. Shake on it?" 

She shrugged and smiled, pulling out another cigarette.

"Shake."

Randy smiled with delight. His hand was warm, dry and cracked. She tried not to think about the bacteria on it. His eyes were filmed over, his beard yellowing. Would he ask for money now? 

\-- _You should never give money to people on the street, Margaret._

_\--Honestly, mum. Let them buy--_

_\--They're just going to use it to buy alcohol or drugs. Most of them are there because of addiction. You don't want to be an enabler, do you? No, it's much better to buy them food. If they're truly hungry, they'll appreciate that._

Margaret shuddered inwardly, a little disgusted. Beside her, Randy gave that wet cough again. A disabled, elderly veteran, another discarded, broken cog. Abject object of pity. She watched him out of the corner of her eye as he took a last pull from his bottle-bag, belched, and then attempted to chuck it into a nearby trashcan, where it bounced off the rim and rolled over the concrete and into the grass. He seemed to only notice the pigeons then, and gave them his black-toothed smile.

"Randy." He was contemplating the pigeons, and seemed not to hear her. "Hey."

"Eh?"

"You need anything?"

"One of them smokes. Another forty. An afternoon playing skee-ball." She pulled out the cigarettes, hesitated, and gave him the rest of the pack. It wasn't like she smoked much regularly, only when she was feeling especially sullen.

"I can manage the smokes and the forty," and she gestured across the street at a liquor store that had just opened for the day, "but not sure where there's any skee-ball, sorry."

"Quite a generous creature, you. Get me a Silver Thunder."

She ended up getting him two for good measure, partly because they were cheap, mostly to see that hideous grin on his face again. _A year and a day, I'll come to collect then._ He would be dead in a year and a day, she supposed.

When Margaret returned to the bench, it was empty except for a couple of crows.

*****

It had been a stupid idea to drink, and an even stupider idea to walk to the subway station at eleven at night, thinking that she'd be able to sober up after a few blocks, get the train, and end up slightly less than worse for the wear by the time she arrived home. Margaret would rather go up against a batch of angry hippos than stumble drunkenly in the door in the path of Sydney's slightly worried and mostly disapproving gaze. (She would give a little sigh, then shake her head and go to the kitchen and retrieve the bottle of ginger capsules. Sydney maintained the belief that the pointless, twelve-dollar bottle contained the cure for morning-after hangovers.) She vowed to never drink with her boss again.

\-- _Not letting you leave, toots. Sorry. See, I'm a very important person, and basically in charge of the world. So you can't leave._

_\--No, she'd said. And that's the end of it. I'm moving back to London. Or somewhere._

_\--Is it the money? Oh my God, it's the money. I'll pay you double, and you can have your own car. No, look, I'll give you a jet. Want a jet? I'm giving you a jet. I'm going to pay you double, get you a company car, and give you a jet. Also, I'm gonna make the sad eyes at you--_

_\--No! Not the sad eyes!_ But he made the sad eyes. Really, she would miss him. He was a rascal, but she would miss him.

\-- _It's Sydney, isn't it? Honestly, I don't know how you put up with her. Is she pushing gluten-free on you? Just eat a lot of doughnuts in front of her face. Eat a lot of doughnuts, and drink your shitty, wonderful, instant coffee instead of the good stuff that normal people like. It'll piss her off. Actually, no, move out. How about an apartment? We'll get you set up with an apartment. Anywhere. How about a penthouse? I'll get you a penthouse. A penthouse, a car, a jet. And sad eyes. Just hang on 'til I get back from the Afghanistan dog and pony show. Okay? Then you're getting a vacation. Like, a three week vacation. No, a two month vacation. Wait, actually, no. I think we need you around for a charity thingy after that. A long weekend?_

And he'd gone on and on, talking rapidly in his charming, slightly manic way until she was laughing so hard her sides hurt, and until she'd agreed to at least stay on through the end of the month. She had left soon after when he got distracted by Emma Stone walking into the bar. 

When she'd left, though, Margaret had not considered that a combination of four cosmos, high heels, and the sudden, very heavy fog would make for a disastrous night-time stroll. Now she was carrying the damn shoes, cursing angrily to herself, and wondering how much of the fog was vodka-induced and how much was the sudden, strange weather phenomenon. Either way, it was so thick that she couldn't begin to make out street signs, let alone familiar landmarks. Little drops of precipitation were starting to smatter on the lenses of her glasses.

Margaret _was_ certain, though, that she'd made at least one, and likely two, turns down the wrong block, that traffic was oddly quiet for a Saturday night, and that someone was following her. Two someones, judging by the footsteps. They'd been on her tail for at least four blocks; they had made a few quiet comments to each other in deep voices. She picked up the pace, glad that her footsteps were near-silent without the shoes. But the two followers likewise sped up. She could not tell how far ahead of them she was.

Footsteps up ahead, a hacking cough. Her breath came fast and short, then not at all. Her stomach dropped straight down to the concrete. She was frozen, helpless, and she hated it. Prey.

There was that cough again, closer, and a quiet voice.

"There she is. Margaret." It was that hobo. She did not know whether to laugh or cry or vomit, and she thought she might do all three. He shuffled forward, and fixed his gimlet eye on her. "Got rid of my Silver Thunder, I see."

"Some... some... men. Behind me," she panted.

"I'm crazy, girl, not blind." He came closer, and put a finger to his lips. "Alley to your right." The man before her was frail, and those behind her were likely not. Her gut went with the lesser risk. She let him take her arm and lead her to the opening of the alley with silent steps. The whispering behind her became laughter.

Randy held her arm and led her a few steps into the alley, then turned his head to face her. A sheen of reflected light from the streetlamp lay across his seamed face.

"Now you hold my arm tight. Ready?"

Margaret pushed her glasses up her nose. Her thoughts stumbled, sluggish waters in her mind. She sagged against him, dizzy. All she could think at the moment was that she was drunk and that a hobo with bad teeth and a yellowing beard had saved her. Unlikely heroes.

"Thank you," she slurred.

"No thanks needed. Just remember, dear girl: a year and a day." She looked at him in confusion as he turned his face up to the sky and said a single strange word.

A blazing light came down, and everything after that was spinning movement, flashing brilliance, and the certainty that she eventually ended up vomiting on someone's golden shoes before passing out.

*****

When she opened her eyes, it was to the scent and sound of the ocean, and the blurry profile of a short, plump woman standing in front of an open window. Far too much light was streaming through it. Splitting headache. Fuzzy mouth. Exhaustion and dizziness. Buzzing in her head. There was a low, broken groan. It took a moment to realize it came from her own throat. She was never, ever drinking again.

"Poor dear. Here, a tonic for your sickness. It's from the travel, mostly. Don't be embarassed, now. Happens to everyone their first time, and you a mortal." The woman's face came into almost-focus in front of her, all pale skin, rounded cheeks, cheery, wrinkled eyes, tufts of frizzy, greying red hair. Margaret found herself swallowing something foul, and coughed, sputtering. Everything blurred around her, and she sank back into soft pillows.

"My name's Yrla, and you are Margaret, I hear." Yrla smiled and wiped Margaret's forehead with a damp cloth. "Welcome to Asgard, dear. Welcome to the Realm Eternal."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The chapter title is from William Butler Yeats's rad poem "The Stolen Child."
> 
> Caveat: the main character here is a black woman who was adopted as a kid by a white family (the fic will get into this backstory later). I'm a white woman. I've done my best to research how to write from her POV without falling into stupid tropes and to depict her POV as a woman of color as authentically as I can while keeping in mind that I'm an outsider to this experience. So, if you guys see moments where I'm going astray here, PLEASE kick my ass so I can do better.


	2. Gods' Grandeur

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The title is adapted from that of Gerard Manley Hopkins' poem, "God's Grandeur."
> 
> This chapter is dedicated to my mom, who beta-read this thing for me to make sure that I didn't screw up in depicting a character with an intellectual disability. Hi Ma! (everybody say hi)

"Asgard," as Yrla explained to her later, once the headache had receded a bit, wasn't actually a fancy name for a fairy otherworld or anything, but simply meant "city" of the "As," that is, its people the _Æsir_. 

For all that, it was still a version of a fancy fairy otherworld that Margaret woke up to, with bright towers, conspicuous displays of wealth, impossibly tall and unfairly beautiful inhabitants, and magic -- actual, real _magic_ , and not of the kind that made microwaves run or charged her phone, though she was sure there was that here as well; no, this was the real thing, spontaneous and (to some extent) effortless, where a speck lying in the crevice of her palm shivered, cracked, and unfurled and within seconds was a seedling vanilla plant. (Yrla was to show her this later, when she took Margaret on a walk through the royal gardens.)

Not that Margaret could see these Æsir people particularly well. Upon waking to too much sunshine and Yrla's welcoming, if overly chipper, voice, she had promptly thrown up on the floor of the small room, moaned in sheer misery, and rolled over and gone back to sleep. Upon waking the second time and frantically scrabbling on the table next to the bed, then on the newly scrubbed floor, in the corners of the small room, under the bed, behind the drapes, and on the inside and outside windowsills, one thing became clear: her glasses were nowhere to be found.

"Glasses?" Yrla wondered. "Well, we've one here above the washstand, little miss, though why you'd need more than that is a wonder to me." She pointed to a mirror on the wall.

"Oh! Sorry, I meant spectacles. Is there a pair of spectacles hanging about? I always wear them."

Yrla frowned to herself. "I know not what spectacles are, miss Margaret. Is it a kind of shoes?" 

Margaret tried to explain what a pair of glasses looked like and grew confused. Describing the quotidian as foreign was quite hard.

"If it helps," said Yrla, "you weren't wearing anything special upon your face when he carried you here. Though you might check with himself."

"Randy? He brought me here?" Randy had looked rather too frail to lift a large cat, much less a person.

"I know not this Randy you speak of. It's Heimdall you want to talk to, it is, though it's a bit of a ways, him being far out in his observatory. In fact it's quite funny, it is, him carrying you in here plain as day, like he takes time off from his watch to bring in stray Midgardians he finds just anywhere. And he himself said we were to set you up in a room in the staff wing here in the palace, that you were to stay as long as you liked, and that we might put you to work when you recovered from the travel sickness. He's a strange one, Heimdall is. And it's rare, it is, for him to take off from his watch. You know, we all got to wondering were you a relation, and that's why he brought you in. You know anything about that? Perhaps a natural child of his? It would make a kind of sense, really. Speaking of such I should show you to the baths and get you some clean clothes, then tomorrow we can set you to work. I don't suppose you'd mind joining the cleaning staff for a bit?"

If Margaret hadn't been exhausted already, she'd have gotten exhausted just listening to Yrla's breathless speech, stream of consciousness, really. Her voice was kind, though, and she didn't seem to mind when Margaret returned to the topic of Randy. Yrla hadn't heard of anyone like that, and hadn't seen anyone that went by his description. What she did come away understanding was that Margaret's vision was very poor, so when they went to the baths Yrla took the younger woman's arm in her own and bustled her off to a large communal bathing room (with separate tubs, thankfully).

When she was escorted back to her little room, she fell asleep almost as soon as she lay her head on the pillow.

*****

In the morning came bright sun, fresh clothes smelling like lavender (a simple blue dress, an apron, sturdy shoes, a headscarf), and hot sun. From the open window came the smell and sounds of the sea. Yrla brought her a breakfast of bacon, some kind of oatcake, and dark, bitter tea. She plopped herself in a small chair opposite Margaret and began darning a sock and talking steadily.

She'd bring Margaret to the general servants' breakfast tomorrow, she said, not wanting to overwhelm her too much yet. Today Margaret would meet a few of the cleaning staff and learn some of the ropes of what she was to do. Would she like to join the cleaning staff, though? Because if not, it'd be an easy matter to find some other work for her to do. Now that she was here and Heimdall had given the word, Margaret was to know that she lived in the very lap of luxury, the best place in all of Asgard itself, but at the same time it was best for a body to have good steady work. It kept one young, it did. She didn't know what kind of work Margaret had done on Midgard, but Yrla could assure her, she could, that the serving staff at the palace was right happy with their lot, with reasonable hours, a generous wage, a safe and beautiful home in the capital, and access to all kinds of entertainments. Best of which (Yrla continued breathlessly) was watching the antics of the high lords and ladies, and sometimes the royals themselves, who got up to all sorts of colorful trouble when they weren't throwing feasts or waging war--

"Sorry," Margaret cut in. "What's Midgard?"

"Bless you, it's your realm."

"What, like New York?"

"I know not what that is. But you're a Midgardian. Midgard is where your kind is from." Margaret could see Yrla looking at her quizzically. _Your kind._ She sighed to herself. It was her luck, after all, to land in an otherworld that would constantly remind her of her own dark skin. "It's not as rare as you'd think, one of the mortals ending up here. No it isn't. Sometimes they stumble their own way here, fall through a thin spot between the realms and get lucky and end up in Asgard. Mostly around this time of year, of course. Used to be that our kind -- at least the high lords of our kind -- would walk amongst the mortals and sometimes take a shining to one of you, bring them back here and even raise a family with them. His Grace generally frowned upon that but he couldn't stop it, no he couldn't, and anyway it turned out that a side benefit was that many of the Midgardians thought us gods, they did, and so they used to pay us tribute. Think of that! The Æsir as gods! Old Yrla was never one of them, mind you, but if I had been, I believe I'd have been worshipped as the goddess of pie!" Her round shoulders shook with laughter. Margaret focused on breathing in through her nose, out through her mouth.

"Mortals. My kind are humans? And Midgard is earth?"

"I suppose so, dear, if that's what you call it. It's quite far away, it is."

Margaret was introduced to a young woman named Gudrun after that, and tasked with following her through a wing of the palace called Vanasalr and cleaning the various nobles' suites. It was simple but satisfying work to change sheets, make up beds, empty wastebaskets, sweep and mop floors, and pick up dirty clothes to deliver to the laundry. Though the last was easily distracting as Margaret constantly shook out and looked over articles of clothing, marveling at the strange loveliness of Asgardian noble attire. The wealthy seemed to have a penchant for bright colors and, despite the heat of the summer, thick, densely woven cloth. Some of it even seemed to have been woven with gold thread. She thought of her mum -- _Sydney_ , she corrected herself -- and her fair trade, organic hemp shirts and similar expensive bullshit, and concluded that some things stayed the same no matter where you were.

What was more difficult and less satisfying was dusting and wiping down surfaces; Margaret had always had a tendency to be clumsy, and what with her lack of glasses and bad vision she managed to break a delicate ceramic vase on her first day. Gudrun shrugged and swept up the shards, insisting that the noblewoman whose room this was wouldn't even miss the thing, and regardless accidents occasionally happened.

A week of no mishaps, and having learned to successfully navigate the maze of halls from Vanasalr to the staff wing, and her small, comfortable room, to the kitchens and baths, saw Margaret cleaning on her own.

Now, she was in a bedroom, standing on tiptoe on a cushioned footstool to dust off the top of a massive mahogany dresser. Her foot slipped from the stool and her hand flailed briefly before she caught her balance, but not before it sent a silver jewelry tree flying. The thing landed with a clank and a tinkle on the tiled floor. Margaret knelt to inspect the damage: the jewelry tree seemed to have been holding a single piece, a massive, chunky, begemmed necklace. Fashion police from earth might have called it a "statement piece." Margaret thought she'd never seen anything so loud and gaudy in her life. She imagined that it would weigh heavily on the neck of whatever rich lady had the bad taste of wearing it. The thing was made up of multiple strands of alternating pearls, golden and silver beads, and many-colored sparkling gems. Or at least it had been. The golden clasp of the necklace was bent, and several of the strands had snapped, resulting in a scattering of precious stones and metals across the floor.

"No. Ah, no." Gudrun had rushed in at the sound from where she'd been working across the hall. "Margaret, you're alright?"

"I'm fine. I'm sorry. I broke this necklace. I was trying to clean the top of the dresser, but I slipped. I need to pick up the pieces. I can get it to a jeweler -- are there jewelers here?"

Gudrun nodded, and rubbed a hand on her face in despair. "Aye, there are, but there isn't a jeweler in the whole capital who'd work on this damn thing and risk mucking it up. Come, help me gather up the pieces, and we'll go to Yrla." It turned out that Yrla knew a woman who knew a man who knew a smith from some place called Nidavellir, and that they might be able to bribe this smith to work on the necklace with a generous offering of gold and pie.

It wasn't until later that afternoon that the necklace's owner discovered the mishap. Margaret was getting the walking tour of the laundry (Yrla and Gudrun had decided, regretfully, that she would be better suited to work that didn't bring her into contact with fragile things) when a high, piercing wail rent the air. She turned to her new supervisor.

"Is someone being murdered?" 

Gerd's face had gone pale. A few minutes later one of the kitchen boys half-tripped down the stairs into the laundry.

"Come see this, hurry!" He was breathless with laughter. At once the entire staff stampeded out of the laundry after him. Margaret sidled her way to the front of the herd (there were some advantages to being the second shortest person in Asgard, after Yrla). The kitchen boy looked back at her.

"Her ladyship's gone mad again!" They followed another piercing yowl to the central hallway, in time to see a woman with a voice like a Nazgûl dragging a man by his ear up the hall. He stumbled to his knees, she turned and shrieked insults in his face in a foreign language, yanked him by the collar, and made her ferocious way forward.

"Oh, me, but that poor boy is going to take the fall for it, he is." Yrla had appeared at Margaret's shoulder, wringing her hands.

"He's a stubborn fellow," kitchen boy said. The man had stumbled again and fallen on his rear, where he appeared to give up, cross his arms over his chest, and let the woman drag him bodily into the great hall.

"Behold," Gerd said, "the grandeur of the gods!" A ripple of laughter went through the crowd.

"Get up, you colossal ass!" the woman screeched as she dragged him two-handed by the collar. His response was a muffled choking sound. She panted and managed to pull him a few more steps forward before giving up and shoving him violently over onto his side. The herd stepped back a pace as he rolled nimbly to his feet, straightened up to a towering height, and delivered them a deep bow before turning and striding back into the fray. Margaret could not see his features clearly, but assumed he was one of the nobility from his stance.

"All-father!" the woman wailed. "It is Brisingamen -- your worthless boy has stolen it from me again!" She'd come to a stop before the high table, where several people were seated over tea.

"Brisingamen is that necklace," Gudrun whispered in Margaret's ear. "The one you broke. That's Freyja. She is loud as well as mad." Margaret was simultaneously amused and horrified. On the one hand -- what kind of pretentious nut would actually name their own ugly necklace? The thought made her laugh. On the other hand, though, Freyja had snatched the man by the collar again and was twisting it brutally. Margaret wanted very badly to step forward and take the blame for it, but she feared what this woman would do to her, a nobody and a human, if she didn't hesitate to try to strangle someone who was clearly important. _Cowardly, unvirtuous_. Margaret thought she should do the Right Thing: she wanted to, but she didn't.

"Lovely Freyja," said an old man from his seat at the table. "Come, take a biscuit. Sit and tell us of your troubles." The servants began to snicker.

"That's the All-father," Yrla whispered. Margaret nodded, just as confused as she'd been before.

Freyja seemed, at least at a distance, to indeed be lovely in a blurry sort of way. She had pale skin and strawberry-blonde hair, half of it piled on her head, half of it streaming down the back of a rose-colored dress. She was not remotely placated. "He stole it from me, again!" It sounded like she was crying. She would have made quite the performer, had she not then turned to the man beside her and screeched at him. "You were in my rooms, you sly bastard! I know you were. You tell me where you hid it, or I shall box your ears!"

"I warn you to leave off my brother, Freyja." Another voice, from a man sitting beside the All-father person. It rumbled, quiet and low, like distant thunder. Margaret shivered, almost feeling it in the floor. The man came to his feet slowly. He was enormous, both in body and presence.

"Sit down, boy." The large man abruptly slumped back in his seat. All-father's voice was tired. He turned back to the accused thief. "My son, what say you to this?"

The son loosened his collar, coughed, and cleared his throat. "I have not been in Freyja's rooms of late. I swear, by Ymir's most fecund and fragrant armpits, the last time I was there was midsummer, a week ago. You remember that party you threw, madame? The one where you ended up drunk and crying and spewed in Fandral's face? He is still a bit sore about that, by the way. It took him over an hour to clean all of your vomit out of his beard properly, and you know how very vain Fandral is when it comes to his beard."

"Stop deflecting, fool boy," said All-father. "Where is it?" Margaret crept forward.

"Ah. Brisingamen. I do not have it." He sounded hurt. Next to her, Yrla was wringing her hands and looking at Gudrun, who shook her head and mouthed no.

"Answer the damn question. Where is it?"

"I know not." He appeared to be squirming under the scrutiny. Freyja collapsed into a chair and began to sob dramatically into her hands.

"I shall step forward and take the blame," Yrla whispered.

"No, Yrla, look at the All-father's face! We'll get sacked for sure. Leave well enough alone. He's going to take the blame for us. Look at him there. A noble Odinsson, saving our hides!"

"Nidhogg gnaw me, the next time I see that ugly thing, I will melt it down and have it fashioned into a toilet seat." The kitchen boy and several other servants laughed out loud. All-father sighed loudly and continued. "My dear lady, you are a fool." Freyja sat up and began to protest, but he cut her off. "You both have one day to resolve this dispute. One day, else I will put you both to work cleaning the mews for the month. Do not bring it before me again. It is a waste of my time, though doubtless the staff have found it amusing enough to supply gossip fodder for the next decade at least. Back to work, all of you!" he barked. They scurried back to the laundry.

The sad shards of the necklace vanished from Yrla's pockets before it was dinnertime. This caused a flurry of anxiety, until "her ladyship was spotted in the library, she was, with that ugly thing round her pretty neck, and smug as a cat licking cream from her whiskers." Margaret found the entire business alarming and tiresome, and vowed to herself to stay as far away from the nobility as possible.

*****

They were regular and rich fodder for gossip, however, even though only some of it was informative. Margaret learned from the laundry staff that this All-Father person was the king of Asgard, Odin, who was also called High, Higher, and Most High, Borsson, Thruster, Raven-God, Screamer, Gallows'-Lord, Blusterer, Old One Eye, Ripper, Long Beard, Victory Father, Trickster, Dangler, and a host of increasingly bizarre names that lead Margaret to the conclusion that this Odin must be both terrifying and possessed of a good sense of humor to tolerate such epithets given to him by the people he ruled. He was old -- so old that nobody could remember how long he had been king. He'd had a reputation for cruelty in ages past when it came to international relations; supposedly, though, this had toned down once the surrounding provinces were brought under Asgard's subjection and paid tribute. A place called Vanaheim still brought them trouble periodically. Rumors brewed of a rebellion in the works. 

Odin's queen was called Frigg, and while the king was supposedly the source of all power, the staff spoke of her with awe, like she was a walking legend. Frigg, apparently, officiated all marriages, attended births, and served as chief advisor to Odin on matters of domestic policy, including oversight of the harvest and export of grain. Asgard, it turned out, was not called the "golden realm" for deposits of precious metals (that was Nidavellir, apparently) but for its rich and fertile soil. In late summer, Yrla said, Margaret would be able to look inland and see the fields awash with rippling golden sheaves of wheat.

"His Grace is a good enough lord," said Gerd. Margaret listened and stirred the washing tub. A hunting party had returned late last night and sent down a small mountain of filthy clothing. She had dumped it in the tub and run shining brass taps to fill it with steaming hot water, dissolved several scoops of soap flakes and was using an enormous wooden stick to stir. Another woman had noted that the stick was easily as tall as Margaret herself. "He's old, though, old and tired. Old _Sigföðr_ doesn't go into battle no more, not that there's much battling to be done. But for the odd skirmish here and there he sends his sons and other thanes."

Margaret paused in her stirring. Another laundress, "Daft Cass," as they called her, was reaching for the piping hot washing tub, eager to scrub the clothes. "Cass, you'll burn your hand. Here, take a turn at stirring instead." Margaret took the girl's hand and placed it on the stick. Cass, slow and uneven, began to stir the tub, struggling to maintain a grip on the stick. Her tongue stuck out in concentration. Margaret wiped sweat from her forehead with her apron and tucked tufts of hair back under her scarf. Gerd had paused in her talk to exclaim in disgust at a tangled knot of dirty sheets that looked like they had seen better days.

"They are fine young men, they are," said Yrla fondly from where she sat knitting in the corner. "I remember both boys from when they were in cradle. Margaret, dear, don't you listen to laundress' talk. Good boys, they are."

Odin's two sons seemed to be as much a source of salacious gossip as they were of military prowess, if not more. The elder had the nickname Silvertongue and the younger, Hammer-Swinger. Or maybe it was the other way round. Margaret remained unsure. One was said to have fathered many dozens of bastards just in the last few decades; the other was said to have fewer numbers to show but was supposed to be just depraved enough in his tastes as to likely be, as one girl said, "the better mount." She tested the hot water and gingerly drew out a red garment which seemed easily large enough to be a wall tapestry. She began to hand scrub stubborn brown bloodstains visible still on the near-blinding crimson fabric.

Cass pointed at it, dropping the stick. "Thunder," she said. "Careful." Margaret frowned and worked the spots on the cloak in the soapy water. 

"Fine young men, indeed." There was a giggle.

"Thoroughly debauched, the both of them, I say. Word says they've worked their way through all of the noblewomen and at least half the ladies' maids have found themselves in one or both of the princes' bedchambers--"

Cass hummed to herself and washed her hands together. "Thunder," she said again. "Lock."

"The rest of them best hurry so we can all take our turn. I should like to get my hands on Thor." Now there was a chorus of giggles.

"Oh, me." Yrla _tsked_ in the corner. Margaret frowned at the cloak. _Thor_. It made sense, if these were the beings that men and women had worshipped as gods in ages past. She laid down the cloak and went to a cabinet, scrabbling for another box of soap. She pulled out a container of white powder and worked some of it into an especially large stain, kneading the fabric with her hands.

"I think we should all like to get our hands on Thor, Marte."

"Was it Thor that Freyja tried to strangle?" Margaret figured she had best learn who these people were so as to avoid stepping on their toes.

"It was not," Yrla said. "That was Loki, the younger. He's a good lad, he is." Her needles clicked steadily.

"He is not, though," Marte objected. "He made the washwater turn all red once, like blood. And he's got a crooked smile."

The needles halted abruptly. "You stop, fool girl! He can't help that." Yrla's voice was shrill.

"Hammer," said Cass. "Fly."

"That's right, Cass, dear, he does have quite a hammer!" Gerd was downright cackling now. Cass began to look anxious and started pulling at her hair-kerchief.

Margaret scrubbed at the stain. It was comforting, in a way, to sit in this damp, warm room amidst these garrulous women. She could relax and work with her hands and listen, and not fall into thinking about the increasingly expansive sinkhole of anxiety over what she was doing here. Taking Randy up on his offer (though she hadn't known it was an actual offer at the time) had not, of course, solved everything. She'd have liked to be scoured clean, to have come to Asgard (or London, in another reality) with no metaphorical baggage. The lack of literal baggage drew her attention to what she had not been able to leave behind.

She paused in her movements, resting her hands for a moment. Marte and the girls had gone from a discussion about the possible size of Thor's hammer (enormous) to whether the younger brother's weapon was supposed to be equally terrifying (it was, according to speculation). No one in the room could claim to having personally seen either of these majestic instruments, either at rest or in action, but everyone seemed to have an acquaintance who knew _someone_ who might have.

"So, wait," Margaret said, shaking her damp hands off. They were starting to tingle. "You're all so certain that each of these princes is packing a diplodocus in his trousers but no one's actually _seen_ either of these things?" There was a kind of collective shrug, except for Yrla, who had set down her needles and was now rubbing her temples. 

"I have seen them," said a new voice, "and the royal scepters are, alas, rather average." A dark-haired woman had appeared at the door to the laundry. "You cannot run around camping and campaigning with the same group of foolish man-children for long before you see rather more of them than you would prefer."

There were several gasps, and then Yrla exclaimed. "Lady Sif! My, my, come to visit us! How was your hunt?"

"Well and good." This new woman embraced Yrla and Cass, and then turned to Margaret. Like all the Æsir, she stood quite a bit taller. She wore pants and some kind of shiny chestplate over her shirt. "Tell me, what is this 'diplodocus' of which you speak?"

Margaret gaped a bit, and rubbed her hands together. Were they burning? Perhaps she was imagining it. "I'm sorry," she blurted. Had she actually been caught gossiping about the royal family? It was one thing to read celebrity rags -- one of the few things from Earth that she missed, that and the terrible instant coffee (or any coffee, really) -- but another to run her mouth about people who were both a known quantity, powerful, in close proximity, and could probably squash her like a bug.

"Why are you looking at me like that? Yrla, is this mortal quite alright?"

"She's near blind, my dear. Margaret, this is Sif."

"Well-met, Margaret." Sif stuck out her hand.

"Hullo. Sif." Why must she be so awkward? She tentatively shook Sif's hand. The other woman had a calloused palm and a firm grasp. Up close, Sif's fingernails seemed to have dirt under them. Margaret winced; there was no doubt about it. Her hands were most certainly stinging, burning even.

"A diplodocus?"

"Diplodocus?" She looked at her hands and rubbed them together. Was it the soap paste? Perhaps she was allergic to it. "It's like a giant lizard that used to live on Earth--Midgard."

"A giant lizard! I shall tell my friends that the laundresses are comparing their manhoods to Midgardian reptiles, though best to leave out the 'giant' part." Sif laughed, then frowned at Margaret and her hands. "What ails you?"

"My hands. It's alright, I'll just rinse them. Sorry." Odd -- the wash water didn't seem to alleviate the burning. Even worse, when she looked at the red cloak, the soap paste seemed to have dissolved part of the fabric. "Oh, the cloak -- I ruined the cloak!"

Yrla glanced at the cloak and examined her hands. "Silly girl -- since when do we wash the clothes with lye powder? That will burn something nasty!"

"Come, Margaret, I will take you to the healer's. Best to tend to the burns." Sif spoke kindly.

"The cloak--"

"Thor has many red cloaks. You only have two hands."

"Loom?" Daft Cass tugged at Sif's sleeve. Margaret winced and shuddered at the girl's slack, open mouth and clumsy pawing hands; a pinch of disgust dissipated in a flood of pity, and searing guilt cut through her belly. 

Sif took Cass's hands in her own. "Would you like to work the loom? It is your turn, this week. The All-Mother would love to see you, as always. But only if you wish it."

Cass wiped the back of her hand over her mouth and appeared to consider for a moment. She looked to Sif and declared "I want my nnn, my dew . . . dew-- my dewness."

At that, Yrla clapped her hands. "I say, I nigh on forgot! The seamstresses just finished your new dress!"

"Dewness. New cress." Cass nodded, satisfied. Margaret listened to the medley, the interchange between word and sound, heard the seamless, mutual comprehension between Cass and the others. She was not an outcast here, a charity case to make others feel gratified at their generosity. The girl, as limited as she was, was _loved_. Margaret looked to her hands; the burns appeared to have begun to weep. The desire to be so loved socked her, a punch to the gut.

"Very well," said Sif. "We shall take Margaret to the healers, and then retrieve your new dress before you visit the All-Mother."

The three of them set off: up the stairs, down a very long hallway, several turns, another set of stairs, a great hall flooded with light and filled with murmurs, several more turns. Sif left her with one of the healers with stern words to the fellow to take special care with her hands. She was mortal, Sif explained, and rather more fragile than the kind of patient he was used to working with. The healer examined the lye burns, smeared some cooling, sticky paste on her hands, and wrapped them in bandages. He sent her on her way with a sigh and an admonition to please _look_ before impulsively delving into the contents of mysterious boxes. _Mortals_ , he sniffed. 

Margaret was too embarassed to ask for directions back to the staff wing of the palace after that, and soon found herself hopelessly lost among the bright hallways and frequent intersections and blurry faces of the unfairly tall people she passed. As she descended one staircase after another, the hallways became increasingly narrow and dark. Panic set in: she would be lost down here for ages, never to be found. How stupid she had been to come here in the first place. Not only was she useless and incompetent at tasks as simple as cleaning rooms and doing laundry, but she was half blind and couldn't even find her way around her new home.

A sudden cacophony of voices erupted at the exact moment that she stormed around a corner too quickly, infuriated with herself. Margaret bounced violently off a moving body and landed hard on the floor. There came a booming laugh from somewhere nearby; she looked directly up (and up) and saw the shadowy outline of cruel, curving horns, and shrank back against the wall. Primal terror froze her. The laughter came again, accompanied by a number of other male voices as tall figures clustered around her. _\--pale leather, sweet stench of rum--_

"Absolute idiots," came Sif's voice, waspish. "Look how badly you have frightened her." Margaret lowed her hands from her face and tried to breathe, craning her neck to look up at them.

"We did not mean to. Mortal girl, there is nothing to fear." The voice sank deep into the floor, kindly and low. The speaker bent low and offered his hand, reconsidered when he saw her bandages, and took her by the elbows, lifting her gently to her feet. He settled huge hands on her shoulders and leaned close. "I hear you do not see well. Let me get a good look at you, then."

He'd a kind face and ruddy complexion, piercing, bright blue eyes with eyelashes that women on Earth would _kill_ for, yellow hair and --

"Well, Thor. Looks like you have another in your thrall. Honestly, my friend, you do not even try, and they just flock to you."

"Thor," she breathed. It was like looking straight into the sun. There was a fluttering in her chest and a sinking feeling in her stomach. "Jesus fuck," she blurted. "I am fucking doomed."

At that, raucous laughter erupted. Thor's laugh was booming, thunderous. She found herself laughing with him, despite it all. Sif was next to her, then, and bent on introducing her to the rest of them. Her friends, she said, the group of ridiculous man-children she hunted and camped and campaigned with. Their names passed Margaret by; Thor had turned to someone else, and her eyes followed him hungrily.

"My friend," said Sif, touching her elbow lightly. "Here is one of our friends who is off-world, just like you are. We are helping him hunt demons." Margaret heard a shy quaver in Sif's voice. "Meet Bill."

Another person approached and held out a brown hand with oddly-shaped fingers. His voice croaked somewhat in what she thought might have been a greeting. The face that swam into view was the stuff of nightmares. It was skeletal, brown, like the skull of a horse with black, blank eyes; the jaws opened and square, blunt teeth clacked closed as he spoke. Margaret recoiled so violently that she slammed back against the wall, then spun on her heel and bolted.

*****

"Well," quipped Fandral. "Excitable little things, mortals!" 

Thor clapped a hand on his shield-companion's shoulder. "I am sorry, my friend. I knew not that mortals were so easily frightened."

Beta Ray Bill shrugged. "Say no more, my prince. I am used to such reactions, after all."

There was a short bout of silence and awkward throat-clearing. Then Volstagg clapped his hands. "How about those demons? They will not wait forever, you know."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SEEEEKRIT TIME: Yrla isn't really an OC, she's basically Mrs. Patmore from Downton Abbey with a different name and job.


End file.
